Infamous America - DIXIE MAFIA: PHENIX CITY Ep. 4 | “A New Hope”

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

Hoyt Shepherd and his brother go to trial for murder, and few people are surprised by the outcome. With corruption and crime on the rise, a new champion of reform leads the charge for change. Hugh Bentley makes it his mission to clean up Phenix City, and he quickly becomes the target of a bomb for his efforts. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to INFAMOUS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Hit “JOIN” on the Infamous America YouTube homepage.  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4V_wVD7N1gEB045t7-V0w/featured For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com. Our social media pages are: @blackbarrelmedia on Facebook and Instagram, and @bbarrelmedia on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For most of the state of Alabama, October of 1946 was a happy time. The sweltering summer heat was beginning to break. The Auburn Tigers college football team started their season 3-0. The Alabama Crimson Tide started 4 in O, but then had an up-and-down ride for the rest of the year. And even though the in-state rivals didn't play each other that year, they did agree to resume their annual game, nicknamed the Iron Bowl, the following year after a 40-year hiatus. Also of note that October, the Tide beat Kentucky

and its new head coach Paul Bear Bryant. Bear Bryant had finished his playing career at Alabama 10 years earlier in 1936, and he was 12 years away from becoming the head coach at Alabama and an American sports legend. In the country at large, 1946 was the first full year in the last seven that the world was not at war.

But in East Central Alabama, along the Chattahoochee River, the times were not as happy. In Phoenix City, there was about to be a sensational and divisive murder trial. In mid-September, 1946, Phoenix City Mayor Elmer Reese was re-elected to a position on the three-person city commission. He won that election with the help of his friend Hoyt Shepard and Shepard's criminal machine. During the victory celebration at Shepard's Southern Manor Club, a criminal boss from Columbus, Georgia, directly across the Chattahoochee River, strolled in with his date. Less than an hour later, the criminal boss, Fayette Lieburn, was dead. Fate, as he was called, was shot at least

twice in a small gambling room near the main bar of the Southern Manor Club. Witnesses said Hoyt Shepherd and his younger brother Grady were the only two people in the room with Fate Leiburn, and Hoyt was most likely the killer. But when the cops finally arrived, 15 minutes after the shooting, Hoyt was gone, and Grady had a very thin story about how the shooting happened. Within a week, both Shepard brothers were in custody, and the stage was set for the preceding that would be the longest murder trial in Russell County history. The event would feature questionable police work, unsubstantiated statements, evidence that miraculously appeared, and witnesses who suddenly disappeared. The trial became less about the specific crime

and more about the overall situation in Phoenix City, Alabama. The town was on its way to being known as the wickedest city in America, and the suspicious re-election of Elmer Reese and the murder of Fate Leiburn ignited a 10-year period of escalating chaos that led to a history of historic reckoning. The trial of the Shepard Brothers would begin the true fight for the soul of Phoenix City. From Black Barrel Media, this is infamous America. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're beginning the long and complex story of the Dixie Mafia. If you had to point to a place of origin, that place is one of America's original sin cities, Phoenix City, Alabama. This is Phoenix City Episode 4, A New Hope.

When the police arrived at the Southern Manor Club on the night of September 16, 1946, and found Fate Lieburn dead on the floor, they immediately arrested Grady Shepard. At that point, Grady was the only one in the small gambling room with the body of LeBurn. The supposed murder weapon was there, a 32-caliber pistol, and Grady claimed LeBurn attacked him with a knife. Then Grady shot and killed LeBron in self-defense. Grady's story had plenty of holes in it, the most prominent of which was that his older brother Hoyt had also been in the room and was probably the real killer.

19-year-old Jeanette Mercer was working in the gambling room at the time of the confrontation between the Shepherd brothers and Fate Lieburn, and she witnessed Hoyt as the instigator and probable killer. Over the next few days, the police arrested the men whom you might call the usual suspects. Grady was arrested at the time of the murder, then Hoyt and his longtime business partner Jimmy Matthews were arrested. Jimmy had been at the club that night, and if Hoyt was involved in something, Jimmy usually was too. The three men were charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy, which normally meant they would have had to sit in jail until their trials. But the judge, who was allegedly controlled by Hoyt and Jimmy, granted the men bail and set them free.

When the grand jury convened on October 1st, it indicted the Shepard brothers, but not Jimmy Matthews. The newspaper speculated that Jimmy Matthews' testimony would be a bombshell, either for the defense or the prosecution, when he finally took the stand. Known as the longest murder trial in Russell County history, it was, in fact, two trials. Grady Shepard and Hoyt Shepard were tried separately, with Hoyt's trial happening first. The prosecution's case was going to rely heavily on witnesses who would testify that Hoyt had been drunk at the re-election party, had lured or coaxed Fate Lieburn into the small room at the Southern Manor, and then he, Hoyt, was still present when the gunshots were heard. But leading up to the opening statements, the prosecutors had a problem. They had no idea where Jeanette Mercer was.

She was the key witness, and possibly the only person who could place both Grady and Hoyt in the room with Fate Lieburn right before Leiborne was killed. Police had searched Phoenix City and couldn't find her. They contacted her family in Macon, Georgia, and still couldn't find her. For several days, the prosecutors waited anxiously, while their best chance to convict Hoyt Shepard was in the wind. When the authorities finally found Jeanette, they were embarrassed to admit that she had been just across the river in Columbus,

holed up in a hotel. The defense immediately painted her as flighty and unreliable, and the accusations were easy to cast because the hotel she had been hiding in was the Cardinal Hotel, which was owned by the victim, Fate Leiborne. But Jeanette bravely took the stand, and told her story. She was 19 years old and she was testifying against the most powerful man in the city. She recounted the whole thing. Hoyt Shepard was drunk. He entered the room where

Jeanette worked and flashed the gun that ended up being the murder weapon. Grady joined him. They had a quick discussion. Hoyt told Jeanette to leave the room. Then the brothers exited. The brothers went into the restroom and when they emerged, Grady returned to Janette. Jeanette's room, and Hoyt went to Fate Leiburn's table, where Fate was having a drink with his date, a beauty queen named Edna Roy. Hoyt said something to Fate, and Fate followed Hoyt into the small room where Grady waited. Jeanette had not left the room as instructed, so she was still there when Hoyt and Fate walked in, and then Jimmy Matthews entered behind them. Now there were four men in the room, and Hoyt again ordered Jeanette to leave.

This time, she did, and as she hurried out of the room, she saw Hoyt Shepard raise the pistol. She did not witness the actual shooting because she was running from the room, but she heard the gunshots behind her. Lastly, she testified that she did not see a knife in Fate Lieburn's possession. And the knife was a whole saga of its own. Two days after the murder, and after the police had logged the small pocket knife into evidence from the crime scene, one of Hoyt's closest allies, Clyde Yarborough, strolled into the police station with a gift. He handed officers a knife that he claimed was the knife fate Lieburn used to attack Grady

Shepard. Clyde offered no explanation for why he took it from the crime scene or why he waited so long to turn it in. The confusion about the knife should have added to Jeanette's fairly solid story, but Hoyt Shepard had the best defense team money could buy. They would be merciless in their cross-examination. Hoyt Shepard's defense team reinforced the fact that Jeanette did not see the actual gunshots. Therefore, she could not testify conclusively that Hoyt Shepard fired the gun. In theory, he could have passed the gun to his brother Grady. And even though Jeanette had not seen a knife in Fate Leiburn's hand,

it was also possible that he pulled the knife after Jeanette turned her back and started to run out of the room. Jeanette had been strong, but she was starting to crack. Her testimony became confusing, and she started to cry. The defense attorneys were sowing the seeds of doubt, and Hoyt Shepard sat motionless, just chewing gum as he watched his lawyer's work. The chief strategist for his defense team was a local man named Albert Patterson. Patterson had just started his term as a newly elected senator in the Alabama State Senate, but he took the job defending Shepard anyway. No one knew it at the time, but Albert Patterson was starting a roller coaster journey that would end in tragedy.

But in the trial, the prosecution's case rested almost entirely on Jeanette Mercer, which meant the defense's number one priority was to discredit Jeanette. The defense rolled out a cavalcade of character witnesses who swore under oath that Jeanette Mercer should not be trusted. Several of those witnesses were current and former lawmen. Newspapers used labels like party girl when they described the testimony about Jeanette. Although the word prostitute was not used, it seemed fair to assume that Shepard's lawyers wanted to plant that idea in the minds of the jury members. After the closing arguments, the jury needed just four hours to make its decision. The common belief is that when the jury reaches a quick verdict in a major criminal case,

the verdict is probably going to be guilty. Hoyt Shepard was found not guilty. Few people in Russell County were surprised by his acquittal. He had political connections in every level of local government and local law enforcement. His money had helped get all the... those men elected or appointed. It would have been more surprising if he had been found guilty. And six months later, the outcome was even less surprising when Hoyt's brother Grady went to trial. Grady claimed that he had been cut by Fate Leiborne and was in fear for his life. He had fired a gun

in self-defense. He had shown police a cut on his arm that was little more than a scratch and said it was proof that Fate Leiborne had pulled a knife with intent to kill. Police found a small pen knife, which is usually a single-blade pocket knife at the crime scene. At trial, the prosecution demonstrated that the knife had neither blood nor clothing fiber on it. In addition, it was found in Fate Leiburn's pocket, and it was closed. If Grady's story was to be believed, then Fate LeBron would have had to pull out the knife, slash Grady with it, wipe it clean, close it, and put it back in his pocket. all while he was falling to the floor and dying of multiple gunshot wounds.

A child should have been able to see the absurdity in the story, but the prosecution wasn't going to take any chances, not after the devastating outcome of Hoyt's trial. For good measure, prosecutors paraded out their own character witnesses who were good, law-abiding leaders in the community. Each one illustrated for the jury the criminal activity that pervaded Phoenix City. The group that was at the top of the criminal activity was the S&M Syndicate, a nickname that stood for Shepard and Matthews. Hoyt Shepard and Jimmy Matthews ran the syndicate.

Hoyt's younger brother Grady worked directly for Hoyt. And as the prosecution added, they were in a turf war with their rival, Fate Leiburn, on the other side of the river. Leiburn had unwisely delivered himself right into the lion's den, and the Shepard brothers and Jimmy Matthews had taken him out. And after all that, the jury found Grady Shepard not guilty. Grady Shepard's trial concluded in the early months of 1947. And even though he and his brother and Jimmy Matthews evaded punishment, it was a slow beginning of the end for their crime syndicate. It would take a few more years for a revolution to sweep out the old and bring in the new in Phoenix City. But Hoyt Shepard and Jimmy Matthews saw signs.

of change almost immediately. A few months after Grady's acquittal, Hoyt and Jimmy were arrested on gambling charges, and more than 100 of their rigged machines were seized. The seizure made for good headlines in the state capitals of Georgia and Alabama, but in Phoenix City and Columbus, it was seen as a basic reaction to the trials. It wasn't a real crackdown. It was just a demonstration to try to convince the public that the trials were not corrupt. The trials had brought a great deal of attention to the region, and the corrupt officials and the crooked cops knew they had to make an example of someone to prevent the state or federal authorities from setting their sights on Phoenix City. But at the same time, the voices of

real reform were growing louder. No one involved thought it was going to be easy, but it was becoming clear that some of the citizenry wanted to take the sin out of Phoenix City. And it became frightfully clear that someone wanted to take out Hoyt Shepard permanently. On the night of July 15, 1947, Hoyt Shepard was on his way home from Opelika, Alabama. The drive was 26 miles, but State Road 38 that connected Opelika to Phoenix City was notoriously treacherous. It was just two narrow lanes on a winding country road that was known for sending tired drivers into the deep irrigation ditches on each side. That night, Josephine Johnson, Hoyt's date, drove his 1946 blue DeSoto coop

while he dozed in the passenger seat. Johnson had dragged Shepard up to Opelika to see a new Mickey Rooney film called Love Laughs at Andy Hardy. Had Shepard been driving, he might have taken more notice of the car that raced up behind them. He might have reacted when the car pulled alongside them. He might have hit the gas or the brakes or swerved into the other car when he saw the barrels of two guns pop out of the open windows. Instead, the other car was in the perfect position to open fire on the passenger side of Shepard's car.

Two gunmen fired eight-45-calibre round. rounds. Hoyt Shepard was hit in the chest, the elbow, and the arm. Luckily for Josephine, the other five bullets whizzed past her without even grazing her. The other car sped off, and Josephine quickly found a farmhouse where she called for an ambulance. Shepard survived the attack, and no one was arrested for the attempt on his life. The newspapers loved writing about the, quote, gangland fashion of the attack. They filled column inches by reminding their readers of the supposed feud between Hoyt-Shepard and Fate Leiburn. Since the gunmen were never found, anything was possible.

And a year and a half later, it happened again. In February 1949, in downtown Phoenix City, the city Hoyt Shepard supposedly ran, a gunman fired a shotgun slug through Shepard's car that left a softball-sized hole in the vehicle. It happened in broad daylight. Then, ten months later on Christmas Eve, a gunman tried to shoot Shepard through a window at his home. A private security guard returned fire, and the would-be assassin fled the scene,

dodging Shepard's Christmas decorations as he ran. Like the other shooters, the Christmas gunman was never caught. In only one of the cases was a suspect even questioned, and no arrests were ever made. Hoyt Shepard probably started to question all those bribes he had paid over the years. He had allegedly bought every important lawman and elected official in the county, and yet he had been attacked three times in 18 months, and the lawman hadn't found anyone responsible.

And with the benefit of hindsight, it seems very likely that Hoyt Shepard started to question his lifestyle and his criminal activities. Change was coming to Phoenix City, and no one would experience a more dramatic turnaround than Hoyt Shepard. But as the saying goes, it's always darkest before the dawn. And there was a lot more darkness in store for Phoenix City before the dawn of a new era. One of the character witnesses who testified against Grady Shepard was Hugh Bentley. Bentley described in great detail and with great passion the illegal activities

that the Shepherd brothers and Jimmy Matthews were allegedly involved in, gambling, prostitution, bribery, and racketeering. Bentley was born and raised in Phoenix City, and he was making it his mission to clean up his hometown. Bentley, a slim man with glasses and a serious face, was born in 1909 in Girard, 14 years before the town merged with Phoenix City. As a child, he probably didn't understand his town's

defiance of every measure that was taken to control the illegal sale of alcohol, the illegal gambling, and the open acts of prostitution. He might have been aware of the raids on those things by state and federal agents, raids that amounted to very little, but he would not have known the deep roots they had grown in Girard, and then Phoenix City. Over time, the criminals had won the war of attrition. Eventually, city officials made the case for allowing, and often inviting the criminal element to Phoenix City. After all, it was just about the only thing they brought money to a town that spent the Great Depression and the war years in bankruptcy. Vice Money built schools and hospitals. It kept roads paved and civil servants paid. After Bentley had studied at a

business college across the river in Columbus, Georgia, he continued his education at Northwestern University in the Chicago area. There, he met his future wife. and they returned to Phoenix City. The Bentley started a family, and Hugh opened a successful sporting goods store in Columbus. And reportedly, it was through that store that his eyes began to open to the reality of Phoenix City. The story goes that Bentley was attending a sporting goods convention

when he told another business owner that he was from Phoenix City. The man began to regale Bentley with the tales of the debauchery he had experienced in Bentley's hometown when the man had been stationed at Fort Benning. Bentley, a pious Christian, found nothing entertaining in the man's stories. He couldn't believe that the clubs and saloons of Phoenix City could be the way the man described. When Bentley returned home and set out to investigate for himself, he discovered they were far worse. Bentley quickly became Phoenix City's most spirited leader for reform. He started to hear stories of things that the country.

criminal and political machines could do to a man who opposed them. People like Hugh Bentley had been beaten or had disappeared, never to be found. But Bentley was resolute. He formed the RBA, the Russell County Betterment Association, to begin the campaign to clean up Phoenix City. The RBA started outreach to any institution that it felt could benefit from the cleanup, churches of all denominations, civic organizations, and even the few remaining temperance leagues that still advocated restrictions on alcohol. Benley launched an attack with three main goals. First, get law enforcement to do their jobs and arrest the men who were responsible for all

the crime. Second, push for legislation that didn't make the criminals' lives so comfortable in Phoenix City. And third, put reformers. in positions of power and oust the politicians who were, for all intents and purposes, on the payrolls of the city's criminal leaders. Hugh Bentley stood tall against the criminal element, despite facing constant harassment and death threats.

He refused to back down, even when it became abundantly clear that the death threats were credible. Hugh Bentley and the Russell County Betterment Association scored their first big win when they were finally able to convince, Vince Phoenix City authorities to crack down on the daily numbers game known as the bug. It had been popular for decades, and Bentley crusaded relentlessly. The effort to curtail the bug was possibly just a small concession made by people in power in the hope that it would get Bentley and his reform group to calm down. It did not. The RBA continued to push until the

police arrested and charged some high-level movers in the Phoenix City machine. including Clyde Yarborough, the old crony of Hoyt Shepard. In just the short time since the RBA's formation, it had gained real momentum, and Hugh Bentley had achieved a revered status amongst Phoenix City's residents who were starting to believe that real reform had a real chance. Hugh Bentley represented a new hope. Unfortunately for Bentley, his newfound notoriety came with a cost. His commitment to cleaning up Phoenix City,

seemed so brash that some people wondered if he and his RBA associates might have been behind the attempts on Hoyt Shepard's life. Benley adamantly denied those theories as rumors of the worst kind. But whether the criminals believed the rumors or they simply wanted to silence Hugh Bentley, he would soon find himself in strange company with Hoyt Shepard. Bentley had scored another victory when he was able to gain the support of state senator Albert Patterson. To some, the partnership seemed disingenuine. After all, Patterson had been the chief strategist in the defense of Hoyt Shepard and Grady Shepard. No man was more responsible for their acquittals than Albert Patterson. But Patterson seemed to have had a change of heart. He had shown a

genuine desire for improving Russell County since he had gone to the state capital to represent it. Patterson and Bentley began planning Patterson's campaign to run for Attorney General of the state of Alabama, a position from which Patterson could enact real change. Over the course of three years, Bentley and the RBA had achieved more than any group before them. But Hoyt Shepard's criminal enterprise had been in place for 20 years. It wasn't going to collapse without a fight. And on January 8, 1952, the fight went stuart. straight at Hugh Bentley. In the evening of the 8th, a homemade bomb detonated under Bentley's house.

Bentley wasn't there, and thankfully his wife escaped unharmed, but the blast blew Bentley's 16-year-old son through a window and 30 feet across their yard. Miraculously, the boy sustained only minor injuries. The attack shook the city and reverberated past the state capital in Montgomery all the way to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. Alabama Governor Gordon Persons found himself on the phone with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, who sent agents to Phoenix City to assist in the investigation. In the newspapers, Bentley was portrayed not only as a survivor,

but as a man utterly committed to the RBA's cause. The Association raised funds to help the Bentley's rebuild their home, But Hugh Bentley's focus remained on the effort to end crime and corruption. In every speech, he begged people not to bother with the rebuilding of his house, but instead to give their money to the efforts to clean up Phoenix City. The bombing brought an incredible amount of attention to the city, just as the murder of Fate Leiborne had. People began asking how the corruption had gotten so bad,

and what leaders were going to do about it. Bentley, with the help of the RBA and the commitment of Albert Patterson to run for state attorney general, seemed to be on the cusp of a real breakthrough. But the success of the reformers only made the criminals more desperate, and the darkest days were just ahead for Phoenix City. Next time on infamous America, Hugh Bentley and Albert Patterson are targets of violence, and only one will survive his encounter. election fraud reaches a new high or low,

and the situation in Phoenix City spirals so far out of control that the governor makes an unprecedented move. That's next week on Infamous America. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week for new episodes. They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials, and they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com.

Memberships begin at just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Jamie Lyko, original music by Rob Valier. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer. Find us at our website, blackbarrelmedia.com, or on our social media channels.

We're Black Barrel Media on Facebook and Instagram and B-Barrell Media on Twitter. And you can stream all our episodes on YouTube. Just search for Infamous America. America podcast. Thanks for listening.